


safety net

by emmram



Series: Whumptober 2020 [1]
Category: DCU (Comics), Nightwing (Comics), Titans (TV 2018)
Genre: Gen, Hurt Dick Grayson, Whumptober 2020
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-03
Updated: 2020-10-24
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:41:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26783851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emmram/pseuds/emmram
Summary: A series of Dick Grayson-focused stories for Whumptober 2020.Chap 1: Day 1 - RestrainedChap 2: Day 3 - Manhandled/Forced to knees/Held at gunpointChap 3: Day 5 - RescueChap 4:Day 7 - Supportsummary:ric is having a Bad Brain Day. fortunately, bea is there, and awesome.
Relationships: Bea Bennett/Ric Grayson, Dick Grayson & Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson & Damian Wayne, Dick Grayson & Jason Todd, Dick Grayson/Koriand'r
Series: Whumptober 2020 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1953010
Comments: 22
Kudos: 180





	1. Restrained

**Author's Note:**

> warnings: some swearing, mentions of suicide. ostensibly set in comics-canon, but uh... set in a nebulous time-line that doesn’t really spoil anything other than the fact that damian is robin.

There are worse places to get stuck than the Wayne manor’s living room, Dick muses. At least he’s comfortable, people can come and visit him, and there’s limitless entertainment on the TV to distract him. He’s not in some dank basement hanging his entire weight from his arms, and he’s certainly not tied to a cold torture table or to a chair in the centre of a room that’s slowly flooding and he has to slips his knots before he drowns and is that a  _ squid _ that’s trying to wrap itself around his face, what the  _ fuck _ —

Okay, so Dick has had _more_ than his share of weird and terrible experiences being tied up. Compared to them, this is a fucking _holiday_. 

“This is getting silly, Grayson,” Damian says, leaning against the entrance to the living room, arms crossed over his chest. 

“Has it only just, Dami,” Dick mutters. He’s lounging on the sofa, one arm over his eyes. He hasn’t moved from this position for at least a couple of hours. He isn’t sure if ‘moving’ is going to be on the agenda for the near future. He just can’t see the point. 

“Have you tried leaving again today? Maybe the— _spell_ ,” Dick imagines Damian’s mouth twisting, the tip of his nose pointing towards the ceiling, “has worn off by now.”

Dick grunts. The truth is, he hasn’t tried in a few days at least. The first few days he couldn’t _stop_ throwing himself against the invisible barrier between this ( _goddamn fucking_ ) living room and the rest of the world, even if it meant that each time it felt like he was being cut open and electrocuted. It was only a combination of Bruce and Jason bodily holding him back and his own body giving up on him, unable to process that much pain for that long, that made him stop. 

The family’s called in favours with Zatanna, Constantine, Doctor Fate, pretty much anyone who has even passing experience with magic and can figure out what’s going on and why it seemed like only Dick was trapped there. And until they can find a solution, Dick, well… 

_ I’ve had worse _ , he reminds himself again.

“That’s not an answer,” Damian says.

Dick bites back on an angry retort and turns so that he’s facing the backrest of the sofa. _He means well_ , Dick thinks, but if he has to look at Damian’s half-concerned, half-contemptuous expression again he’s going to say something he will regret. Again. 

After a long moment, he hears Damian click his tongue against his teeth. “It’s a good thing you’re not in enemy territory, Grayson,” he says, before walking away, “where your utter lack of self-preservation might’ve ended up endangering _someone else_.”

And that’s the crux of the whole thing, isn’t it? If he’s in enemy hands he at least has a _purpose_ , a readily identifiable objective, something to _overcome_. Here, he feels like a goldfish in a bowl, able to smell, hear and see freedom but never able to get there. Each little concession to his situation—from the portable toilet that Alfred’s dragged in there, to installing whatever gym equipment that can fit in the space, to the growing collection of books, blu-rays and multiple new streaming subscriptions—feels like a defeat to an invisible enemy he hasn’t even _begun_ to fight.

( _that he doesn’t **know** how to fight—_)

He pulls his blanket over his shoulders, closes his eyes, and surprises himself by falling asleep almost immediately. 

-

Dick’s woken by the sound of alarms. He’s up on his feet and running towards the source of the sound before he can even put together a conscious thought; it sounds like somebody’s trying to gain unauthorised access into the _Batcave_ , which can only mean--

He stops short when it feels like he’s run into a _wall_ of electricity. His mind tips sideways, sparks filling his vision, nerves misfiring and his body convulsing in their wake. He falls to the floor, twitching, the impact digging bruises into his skin. He curls into a ball, his muscles taut and pulling impossibly tauter, drool seeping from a mouth that he can’t seem to close and screams locked inside a chest that he can’t seem to _move_.

The moment stretches for an eternity until it isn’t, and he heaves a shuddering breath. His vision clears enough to see Damian--in full Robin costume--crouched in front of him, pale and frowning. Jason’s standing behind him, shirtless and panting.

“Dick,” Damian says. His voice is small, and scared.

Dick should be trying to reassure him. He should be teasing him about using _Dick_ instead of _Grayson_ or _Richard_ or any number of semi-fond insults. He should be trying to figure out which is way up, honestly, given the way the room is still spinning. Instead he says, “... the intruder?”

“My fault,” Jason says. “Tripped an alarm by mistake. But, Dick, you…”

Dick starts to push himself up on shaky arms. “I’m okay,” he says, even though his voice feels like it’s scraping through the gravel in his throat. “I must’ve gotten farther than I realised.”

Jason and Damian exchange looks.

“That’s the thing, Dick,” Jason says, after a long, silent moment. “You _didn’t_.”

That’s when Dick notices that he’s barely two feet away from the couch. 

“Oh,” he says.

-

Now that the circle’s started closing in around him, it doesn’t stop. Everyday, Dick discovers that the space that he can exist without pain that feels like his body is being flayed open with a machete is getting smaller and smaller. There’s a point where he can’t move from the couch, even to use the portable toilet--unless he wants to live inside it.

This is the point where he stops eating.

Family and friends come and go, reassuring, pleading, sometimes yelling at him to _not give up_. Dick wants to be grateful that he isn’t alone in this, but seeing the way they move in and out of the… _cage_ that he’s in with no effort at all brings him to the verge of heart-pounding, dizzying panic. A large part of him is still unable to reconcile the wide open spaces he sees around him with his inability to… _be_ in those spaces. An actual cage would probably be easier to deal with. 

(For a fraction of a moment, Dick considers asking Bruce to build him one. He can’t imagine that desire being treated as anything other than a joke, but he is _well_ past the point of joking now.)

“We’re close to finding the solution,” Tim tells him fiercely. “I _know_ it. That’s why the spell’s accelerating.”

Dick’s supposed to be the hopeful one, and yet it’s always Tim who’s reaching for even the slightest sliver of light and it’s always Dick who’s too afraid to believe him. The words _I’ll die before that happens_ come unbidden to his mouth, but he doesn’t say them; for one, they would devastate Tim, who already looks a moment away from shattering, and two, would he really die? Or would he just be in this horrific pain for all of eternity? 

( _would he be **allowed** to--_)

Bruce spends an entire day sitting with him, talking about everything except Dick’s current predicament. He talks about old and new cases, about Damian’s newest addition to his bat-menagerie, about upgrading the Batmobile and the time Alfred tried to teach him to make Bechamel sauce and he ended up burning a perfectly good pan because for some reason when it came to cooking, he lost all sense of time and proportion. 

Dick appreciates the effort, and tries to participate, but at this point he thinks it would be a mercy to be left alone.

-

Dick can’t move. Even the slightest slump in his posture means his muscles seize up in agony, forcing him to find a position that hurts the least and… stay that way. He can’t speak. He can barely breathe.

Damian’s taken to cuddling next to him, bereft of his last shred of self-consciousness. He doesn’t look at Dick, but tucks his head under Dick’s chin, arms wrapped around his chest. The steady stream of visitors has trickled down to just his family, who move around him, silent, slow and haggard. They’re close to giving up, he realises. They’re so close to letting him--letting him--

_ No. _ Now that the moment’s here, Dick finds he’s not even remotely ready. He doesn’t want to die. _He doesn’t want to die_!

He tries to speak, but the slightest movement of his jaw shoots white hot pain down his neck and spine, and all he can manage is a whimper.

Bruce crouches in front of him until his face is level with Dick’s. “It’s okay, Dick,” he says. “This will be over soon.”

Dick blinks, tears slipping down his face to soak into Damian’s hair. 


	2. Manhandled/forced to knees/held at gunpoint

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> summary: dick runs into jason while on a mission in less-than-ideal circumstances. fortunately, dick has a plan.
> 
> warnings: plenty of swearing, non-explicit references to torture, and uh... that’s it? this is set in comics verse, but again a nebulous timeline because comics make my head hurt. also, i’ve never written comics!jason before, so do let me know if you think his voice sounds off.

Everybody that knows Dick has always admired him for being the ‘man with the plan’ though if anybody really thought to ask--and he _wishes_ they would ask, he wouldn’t mind imparting some hard-earned wisdom--he would say that’s very nice, but also bullshit. You can’t plan for everything; there are too many variables to anticipate, and you don’t want to lock yourself into something that makes you predictable. If Dick appears that way at all, it’s one part thinking-on-the-fly, one part training, one part experience, and three parts blind confidence. The key is being _flexible_ , literally and figuratively.

Of course, it’s a bit harder when you’ve got your hands tied behind your back and someone’s trying to drown you in a tub of ice-cold water, but that’s just how the job goes. Dick’s had worse.

Just as he’s on the verge of passing out, he’s grabbed by his hair and pulled out. He struggles to keep his wobbly legs under him as the asshole who had just held his head underwater leers at him. “You know what that was for, Nightwing?” he asks. “ _Nothing_. You have nothing to offer us other than dying in the slowest, most _pathetic_ way possible.”

Dick huffs a laugh. “Well, if _that’s_ all…”

He gets a punch to the ribs for that and loses all his breath for the second time in the last ten minutes. It wouldn’t be so bad if he didn’t already have what he suspected were cracked ribs from the beating earlier that evening, and, coupled with the water torture, if his lungs weren’t already burning with every breath. He heaves and coughs, grateful for the first time for the icy water dripping from his hair, as it meant his captors couldn’t see the tears leaking down his face from the strain of merely trying to breathe normally.

“Well, if this isn’t a familiar sight.”

Dick’s grabbed by his hair again--and _fuck_ if Dick doesn’t find that the most annoying thing about this whole fiasco--and dragged into a corridor. He makes a half-hearted attempt at escaping but receives a hard shove for his trouble, and his kneecaps crack loudly against the cement floor as he falls. He lifts his head, blinking away the spots in his vision, to see Red Hood walk languidly towards him.

“Don’t stop on my account,” Jason says. “The water torture looked like it was a lot of fun.”

“He’s all yours now,” the man behind him says, kicking Dick in the small of his back. Dick grunts, but doesn’t fall over. “Figured you’d know the best way to make him hurt,” his voice drops slyly, “given how you used to fight with him, before. Practically _bosom buddies_ , I heard.”

Dick’s mouth twists in distaste and he scoffs before he can really help himself. He receives a smack to the head for that.

Jason shrugs. “I can make him scream, yeah,” he says. “But you know how it is: you torture a Bat long enough, you attract the rest of them. And then it just isn’t any fun anymore.”

“Yeah!” one of the other men pipes up. “There’s _always_ another one of them. And they _always_ find you.”

“They’ve got cameras and bugs comin’ out their asses!”

“Downright fuckin’ _illegal_ \--”

“So you’ve just gotta remember,” Jason interrupts loudly, “that they’re just human scum, like the rest of us. The sooner you put a bullet between their eyes and get on with your jobs, the better.” With that, he removes a gun from his holster and points it straight at Dick’s head.

Dick tenses, breaths wheezing between his gritted teeth. The cool, calm _purpose_ in Jason’s movements is unnerving, even more so than any of his Pit-mad rages and previous attempts at fratricide. 

“He has a point,” one of the other men says slowly.

Jason smirks and clicks back the safety on his gun.

Dick’s about 60% sure he can avoid a fatal shot if he times his move exactly right, but surely Jason would be keeping that in mind? So maybe it’s a _30%_ chance--

“Wait,” says the man behind Dick, who seems to be the leader of the operation, “that’s too _easy_. I see your point, but Nightwing has ruined _way_ too many operations of ours to go out just like _that_.” For _fuck’s_ sake, there’s the hand in his hair again. He’s going to get a crew cut after this. “He still needs to _suffer_. I say we leave him here to slowly rot--he’s half dead right now, anyway.”

Jason narrows his eyes, his gun never wavering. “No, you don’t know these assholes like I do, you leave any of them alive you’ll--”

“ _I said we leave him here_ ,” the leader growls, clearly smarting over Jason essentially taking over the operation and, you know, _making points_ with his men. “We’ve taken everything off him, anyway. Let the other Bats find his frozen body--it’ll be a message.”

Jason rolls his eyes, but it’s an uncomfortably long moment before he finally clicks the safety back on and puts it back in his holster. “Whatever, man. Your funeral.”

They end up tying Dick’s handcuffed wrists to a hook on the wall, pulling his arms painfully behind him. His ankles are tied together as well, a heavy chain wrapped around them for good measure. Jason in particularly appears to take great pleasure in lashing the ties around Dick’s wrists as tightly as possible, the material biting bloody groves into Dick’s skin. For a brief moment, their palms touch. Dick looks away, unwilling to meet Jason’s eyes.

They leave him alone in the cold and damp, wheezing from the chill, the damage to his chest, the strain of his position, and what Dick’s pretty sure is a budding infection. When he hears the sounds of their boats leaving the harbour, he slumps his head back against the wall, presses the emergency beacon that Jason had pressed into his hand, and waits.

-

A week later, Dick’s resting in his room at the Wayne Tower penthouse, trying his best to sleep despite the tightness in his chest. He eyes the portable oxygen tank next to his bed; he isn’t the biggest fan of using it, but hey, apparently recovering from double pneumonia means doing a lot of things he isn’t terribly fond of, who would’ve thought?

Just then, his window creaks open and a hooded figure crawls in.

“You,” Jason says, straightening to his full, considerable height, “are an idiot.”

“Hi to you too, Jay.” Dick says cheerily.

“When you said you were going to _sabotage their operation from the outside_ while I did it from the inside, I didn’t think it would mean get yourself captured and killed!” Jason throws his arms up, starting to pace. “And I’m standing there thinking, _oh shit I might have to actually try and blow this motherfucker’s brains out_ because you have no sense of self-preservation!”

Dick coughs, then points out, “You didn’t have to. By the way, the fact that you had to be talked out of shooting me by Villain-of-the-week number 10? Kind of hurts.”

Jason deflates. “I knew they’d never let me kill you outright. They’re from Gotham, which means they’re more sadists than professional criminals.”

“Hurray for Gotham, I guess.”

Jason shakes his head. “Did you have _any_ plan back there?”

“Of course,” Dick says, now serious. “You.”

Jason stares at him for a long, long moment before slumping into a chair by Dick’s bedside with a huge sigh. He loops the nasal cannula around Dick’s head and turns the oxygen tank on; the tightness in Dick’s chest slowly fades. “You know,” Jason says, “I think I might be ready for us to go back to being sworn enemies again. This shit is too stressful.”

Dick closes his eyes and smiles.


	3. Rescue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **summary** : kory rescues dick from captivity, but he has a final trick up his sleeve.
> 
> warnings: set vaguely at some point after s2 ends. some s2 spoilers. pretty harmless, really.

Dick’s been missing for five days when Kory finds him slumped and bleeding in the basement of a derelict Gotham hotel. The place smells dank and mouldy, and it’s cold enough that Kory’s shivering, her powers mostly spent. She’s been on Earth for long enough now that she anticipates depravity instead of being startled by it, but Gotham is… special. _Beyond_. There’s a pall over it that stifles her powers before she’s even had a chance to use them, and it only gets worse the deeper she goes into the city, into all the places even Gotham thought was unsalvageable. It’s frightening to think that this is the city _after_ it obtained an entire family of vigilantes dedicated to saving it.

(maybe _their_ kind of saving isn’t what Gotham needs, after all--)

She glows faintly, illuminating just enough of the place to see Dick chained to a corner by his arms. He’s on his knees, slumped to one side, blood caking one side of his face, but his costume appears otherwise intact, and he is breathing steadily. Rats scurry into dark corners as she approaches him.

“Good timing,” Dick says, as she gets close. “I was just about ready to get out of here.”

He’s grinning, teeth startlingly white against the grime and blood on his face. He looks utterly relaxed in a way that Kory has never seen him in Titans Tower or, well, anywhere _else_ ; for all that Dick professes to despise Gotham, there’s no denying he’s in his element here. Even if that means being captured, beaten up and left for dead.

Kory makes a show of rolling her eyes as she swiftly snaps the chains with her bare hands. It worries her that he isn’t immediately leaping to his feet or even trying to move much at all; now that she’s close, she can hear a faint wheeze tailing every breath. “It doesn’t look like you are,” she mutters.

Dick’s grin fades. “Just a broken ankle,” he says with practiced nonchalance. “Kind of pedestrian when it comes to torture, really. Are Rach and the others okay?”

“Dealing with the rest of the cult outside so that I could get in here.” Kory slips a hand under his shoulder and slowly hefts him to his feet. Dick hisses, swaying, but swiftly transfers weight to his uninjured leg, leaning against Kory for support. 

“Gar’s still got a cold, you think he should be out there fighting?”

Kory begins to make her way to the door in small, slow steps, allowing Dick to figure out a gait that meant the least discomfort. “He recovered from it last week, Dick,” she says, when Dick has stopped gasping in pain. “You’ve… you’ve been gone a while.”

Dick falls silent for a long moment as they make their painstaking way to the door. Then: “I haven’t missed his birthday, have I?”

“No, but I think he’s already found out about the game console you’ve hidden in your room.”

“Ah,” Dick says, smiling, “I _meant_ for him to find that. It’s cover for his real present.”

“If it’s the collection of autographed basketballs then he’s found that, too.”

Dick shoots her a sidelong glance. “That’s not… meant for him--”

“Whoops.” Kory laughs and kicks the door to the basement open. “Do you want to tell him or shall I?”

The lobby is already swarming with men by the time they get there. Kory fights off as many of them as she can and Dick tries his best to help, but with her own powers at a low ebb and Dick… incapacitated, they’re clearly not going to get out the front door.

“Roof,” Dick gasps.

Kory swiftly gathers him in her arms without another word--ignoring just how _light_ he is and the heat radiating off exposed skin--and sprints up the stairs. The rotting staircase rumbles and creaks with the footfalls of the men chasing them, but Kory just pours on speed, acknowledging but putting aside the way Dick bounces in her arms, his laboured breathing, his bitten-off screams when his ankle is inadvertently jostled. When she finally bursts onto the roof, panting, he looks ready to pass out.

He’s still _grinning_.

“Okay, Grayson,” Kory pants. “What’s your big plan?”

One of the ugly stone gargoyles on either side of the roof _shifts_ , tilting its neck and spreading its enormous wings against the murky night sky. It crouches, as if waiting to be mounted.

“Rachel,” Kory whispers. She looks sharply at Dick. “Was this your idea?”

Dick shrugs. “Been a dream ever since I became Robin.”

Behind them, the roof access bursts open again, their enemies pouring in. “When I get my flight back,” Kory says, placing Dick in front of her on the gargoyle’s back and climbing on after him, “you’re going to regret that you ever made me do this.”

Dick pulls her arms around his waist. “Hold on tight!”

His laughter echoes in her ears as the gargoyle lurches off the roof and towards safety.


	4. Support

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **summary** : ric is having a Bad Brain Day. fortunately, bea is there, and awesome. 
> 
> warnings: set early in the ric grayson run. some swearing. uhhh... pretty harmless otherwise really? more fluff than whump, honestly.

Ric walks in just as Bea’s closing up for the day, and for a fleeting, traitorous moment she thinks: _not again_. _Not now_.

She was hoping to get in a nice hot bath and a solid night of sleep before she wakes to volunteer at the shelter; maybe even squeeze in a couple of episodes of _Stranger Things_ if she feels like it, and doesn’t that just sound fucking wonderful? Especially after the month that she’s had--

“Hey.” Ric smiles, brilliant and easy, and Bea feels a weird mixture of guilt and a sensation like her heart’s too big for her chest, fluttering furiously against her ribs. She ignores the feeling and focuses on wiping the glass in her hand, tossing a casual, “Hey, you,” back to him.

He ambles towards the bar. “I’m sorry, I know you’re about to go home. I was just going to-- _whoops_!” Bea looks up sharply at the sound of a resounding crash. Ric isn’t visible anymore, and when she peers over the edge of the bar, he’s sprawled on the floor, one of the barstools resting on his legs. He looks slightly dazed, but otherwise uninjured.

( _at least there isn’t any **blood** \--_)

Bea quickly runs around the bar to crouch at his side. He smiles crookedly at her. “Sorry,” he says, “missed the seat.”

“First things first, Grayson,” Bea says briskly, lifting the barstool off his legs, “are you hurt anywhere? You didn’t hit your head again, did you?”

“Nope,” he says, trying to get up, “just piss-poor aim and a bruised ego.”

She reaches out one hand to help him up. A cold, familiar fear trickles down her spine when Ric tries, and fails repeatedly, to try and hold her hand back. Despite what looks like a considerable amount of focus, his hand seems to drift at least an inch to either side of Bea’s.

“Listen, Ric,” Bea says urgently. “Is your vision blurring? Can you speak properly? Are you having any trouble moving one side of your--”

“For _fuck’s_ sake, Bea, I’m not having a stroke,” Ric snaps, temper flaring out of the blue. Bea thought that she had gotten fairly used to his mood swings, but she still recoils, every muscle in her body wire-taut.

Almost immediately after the words have left his mouth, Ric’s eyes widen, and the corners of his mouth pull down in instant regret. “I’m sorry,” he says, “I shouldn’t have--it’s just. It’s just that my brain… forgets where the rest of my body is sometimes. It comes and goes, I’ve dealt with it before, and I.” He lets out a breath, looking at the floor. “I’m sorry.”

Bea aborts his uncoordinated attempts to get up by hooking a hand under Ric’s shoulder and hefting him up. He sways alarmingly, and Bea props him against her before he can take another tumble to the ground. He’s still not looking at her, but Bea doesn’t think she’s quite up to forgiving him yet, considering his words are still ringing in her bones like a shock. 

“Taken your meds yet tonight?” she asks instead.

There’s a suspiciously long pause. “... Maybe?” Ric says finally.

A muffled, helpless panic takes root in her, makes her palms sweat and a tension headache start to cinch around her head. Ric isn’t the first unfortunate soul to wander Bludhaven’s streets without some very basic needs being met, but Bea’s _seen_ his family come and visit him: that red-haired chick and an actual freakin’ _butler_. The idea that they would leave this brain-damaged man to his own devices without so much as passing a few dollars to him so that he wouldn’t have to choose between meds and food to eat.... well, doesn’t _surprise_ her, to be completely honest, but is still incredibly shitty.

“Are they in your car?”

Ric shrugs. “Usually are. Can’t say I remember where I parked the car, though.”

“Well, I think I know where it is, so let’s move on.”

He leans on her almost the entire way to the car, trying valiantly to get his feet under him but failing everytime. He is breathing noisily in her ear, either from the effort or because of dizziness, and she whispers, “Just close your eyes. It’s ok.”

“Mmm.” He swallows thickly. “Can we, um. Maybe sit? For a minute?”

They stumble and collapse onto a park bench. His head lolls against her shoulder, like he can’t figure out how to get it upright yet, but it’s… surprisingly all right for now. It’ll pass. He’s warm and solid against her and it’s starting to feel like… he belongs there.

Her night off can wait.

“Sorry about this,” Ric says softly. “You shouldn’t have to--I should’ve been able to. To. Keep on top of this.”

She wonders at the way he talks about his health, like it’s a task that’s been assigned to him. “It’s what we do here in Bludhaven, down on the ground,” she says. “We take care of each other.”

He doesn’t respond. They sit like that for a long time, until the horizon is tinged with the first blush of dawn. Ric’s head doesn’t loll, uncontrolled, like before, but he still doesn’t move. 

And Bea, well… she doesn’t mind.


End file.
